


leaving fingerprints

by august_the_real



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 08:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3112202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/august_the_real/pseuds/august_the_real
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"every time you feel wonderful baby, i feel bad."</p>
            </blockquote>





	leaving fingerprints

leaving fingerprints  
august  
mrsrosiebojangles@gmail.com

spoilers: women of qumar.

*

One morning she realises that she's known him for more years than she has fingers to count on.

"You could use your toes," he says, when she tells him. She sighs, thinks, he would use his toes, and now she has reason number forty-eight that it would never work.

It's a good thing she's keeping count. She's said, "hey, it's me" and "fuck you" in equal parts, sometimes in the same conversation. They've rarely lived on the same coast, rarely been on the same page but there's something in the fact that they both love the rain.

Here's seventeen years of odd counterpoint poured into a short, balding man. She's never known him with much hair, or the right timing but he's been number five on her speed dial for as long as, well, she's had it.

*

Toby never stayed in L.A. for long.

She was drinking beer at a party in the godforsaken Valley the first time she met him.

"So, let me ask you, are you talking to me like I'm Heidi-come-down-from-the-hills who's in the big city for the night because I'm a woman?"  
He exhaled. "Uh, to be honest, I, I have no idea what you just said to me."  
"You're either a liar or a fool if you think Bostoni is the best man for the job. Forget the fact that he's in bed with the timber industry, forget the fact that he clerked with Wilson; the guy can't answer a question in less than fifty words. Your press secretary will slit his throat before you make it to an election."  
"Is that supposed to impress me?"  
"What?"  
"So, Bostoni's an idiot. Any half-wit who reads the paper knows that. But he's running against a woman who doesn't distinguish between pedophiles and homosexuals, so, you know what, I'll take my chances."  
"Ah, yes, compromise, the great lubricant of the Democratic party."  
He laughed, looked in the bottom of his glass and then downed it, muttering, "Californians will fucking kill me, I swear to god."  
She stared at him, "yeah, they probably will."

His eyes narrowed, and she wondered how sharp he would be if he were sober. He said, "who are you working under?"  
"Working under? No, no one. I'm in PR."  
He snorted. "PR? You're smart, you know, you should think about getting into politics."  
"Gee, thanks, and I only majored in statistical analysis of polling samples. I never thought about politics."  
"Well, I'll tell you this for free: any campaign in the country would take you on. And if they don't, give me a call."  
She pushed his business card back towards him. "There's not a campaign in this country that's liberal enough for me so, no, thank you, I don't think I will."  
He snorted. "And public relations is the answer?"  
"Well, at least this way I have a chance of not, you know, entering my thirties as an alcoholic. And I'll tell you something free, you're not going to make it out of yours if you keep putting it away like you did tonight."

She turned, smiling, and said her goodbyes. Within minutes, she hailed a cab.

She loved L.A.

*

"Hey, girl from the party!" Someone yelled behind her, and, because she wasn't accustomed to being hailed in her office, and certainly not with, "hey, girl from the party!", she kept walking. She was almost at her office door when a hand landed on her shoulder.

"Hey, girl from the party," he said again, out of breath.  
She looked down on him, but that wasn't unusual. "Hey, conservative masquerading as a liberal. From the party."  
"Claudia Cregg," he reads the name on her door.  
"Yeah," she looked at him, "but I'm thinking of changing it to Jean Cregg. ‘Cause, you know, there's a woman here already, Claudia, and it's getting annoying."  
"Jean's nice."  
"It's too much, isn't it?"

He shrugged, kind of smiled, and breathed, "so, uh, you mentioned where you worked."  
"And you just thought you'd come and skulk around the office until you find me?"  
"No, Tim, Tim told me your name."  
"So the "girl from the party" thing?"  
"Yeah, sorry." He shrugged again.  
"Hmmm." She smiled and he followed her into his office.

"Don't you have a job to be at?" She sorted through the messages on her desk and then picked up the phone.  
"We're flying out tomorrow."  
"Yeah, hello. This is Claudia Cregg, I'm returning a phone call from Frank Wilson." She held her finger up to him, and watched him watch her legs as she swung back on her chair. "Sure," she said, into the phone. Then, covering the mouthpiece, she looked at him again. "What are you doing here, guy from the party?"  
"Toby," he said, quickly, "Toby Ziegler."  
"What are you doing here, Toby Ziegler?"

He started to say something, but she held her finger up again, attention back on the phone. "Yep. Well, look, let him know that we couriered off the new kit, and that I'll be in my office until six if he has any problems. Yep. Thanks, Michelle."

She dropped the phone down, and was surprised to see he had sat down.

"You're from New York, Toby?"  
"Yeah."  
"Are you really one of these New Yorkers who hates L.A.?"  
He didn't answer immediately, "yes."  
"Do you hate L.A. because it's fashionable?"  
"No, it's really not an L.A. thing. I hate any city where people regularly, you know, walk in the sun."

She laughed, and he laughed.

"So, uh.." he begun.  
"So, uh," she mocked, "you're in town for the night and thought it might be fun if we got a drink later on?"  
"No, actually. I just wanted to apologise for the other night. I don't normally talk to people the way I spoke to you."  
"No, I imagine you don't."  
"Californian parties make me uncomfortable, I keep, uh, expecting people to force me to play a guitar or something."  
"So, you're pleading insanity."  
"Temporary insanity. Confined to the west coast."  
"Temporal insanity?"  
He smiled, "yeah."

"Well, thank-you, I appreciate that."  
"Yeah, and plus, I'm in town for the night, and I thought it might be fun if we got a drink later on."

She looked up; he was smiling and she thought, well, what do we have here?

*

There were the times, infrequent times, when he held her wrist, when he traced the blue lines of her veins.

There were stretches of months when she didn’t see him, didn’t think of him.

"When are you going to suck it up and move here, Toby?" She laughed as he dodged traffic on the way to the airport. The car behind him beeped loudly as he cut across two lanes of traffic. She laughed, lit a cigarette and rolled down the window.

He slammed on the brakes, pressing down on the horn. "Fuck, I hate L.A.," he said.

*

Once, he bullied her into eating Taco Bell while they watched an old episode of The X-Files. He told her he had a thing for Scully, but it was Toby, so the next thing he said was, "are you gonna eat the rest of that?" Scully may, possibly, be the shortest woman in the world and she suddenly had reason number eight.

Months later, he introduced her to Andi. Andi wasn't Scully-sized; Andi could look her in the eyes without heels. Oh, she thought. Oh, I got that wrong.

*

Toby never stayed in L.A. for long. And, after the marriage, he didn't stay at all. It was better this way, she thought, better than reading emails that left her staring at the computer screen.

There were the times, infrequent times, where he had held her wrist, traced the blue lines of her veins.  
Where he'd drunkenly said, "you know, we should have slept together that first weekend we met."  
Where she'd laughed, pulled her hand away, replied, "you never had a chance."

There were times when she'd flown to New York, for business, and never called.

And then, one day, she opened her door to find him standing there.

"So, hypothetically speaking, you have a friend-" he began, and she thought of all the times she had found him sitting on her steps, waiting for her outside buildings.  
She smiled. "-Hypothetically speaking."  
He sighed, and continued, "and you haven't spoken in eighteen months."  
She held her hand up. "I think I know where this is going, and Toby, you don't have to give me the twenty dollars back. Think of it as a, a belated wedding present."

He smiled. "You want to go for a ride?"  
"I have to," she looked inside, "I'm expecting a call from Japan. There's this time difference, I have to wait for it. Why don't you, wait, what the hell are you doing here?"  
"I, uh." He looked uncomfortable, she thought, like the guilty man in a police line-up. And then, small smile, looking down, he said: "I've quit politics; I'm doing the door-to-door sales thing."  
"So, of all the luxury apartments in L.A-"  
"-Yeah, it just happened to be yours."

"So." She leaned against the door frame. "You come here, quoting Marlon Brandon-"  
"-Humphrey Bogart," he corrected her, she guessed, automatically.  
"Quoting Bogart and, what? How was the new world, Toby?"  
"The new world?" He raised his eyebrows.  
"Where's Andi?"  
"She’s in, uh, New York. Or Colorado. Colorado, I think."  
"New York or Colorado. She’s versatile."  
"She’s quite a woman," he said, not kindly.

"So," she repeated.  
"So," he echoed.  
"Well it’s been nice chatting, Toby. Good luck with the whole door-to-door thing." She pretended to close the door.

He choked down a laugh, and she was not-so-secretly glad to see him.

Still, "I've missed you," he said, and she pretended she didn't hear.

 

For a while, she had thought that she could change her name and her hair color, that she could work in Vegas handing out flyers for porn to married couples. But, instead, she got in his rental car. Toby always drove like a maniac and he always blamed it on being born in Brooklyn. She thought: there’s no escaping this.

She ordered pancakes at the IHOP, then changed her mind and ordered eggs. She looked up and he was smiling.  
"I’d forgotten that. That you do that."  
"Not all of us can get away with saying, 'hot and not wet' and still get a meal."  
He smiles.

"When did you get in?" she asked, although it wasn’t the question she wanted.  
"They showed that fucking tourist video on the plane, the one I hate."  
"The did-you-know-L.A-was-a-desert one?”  
He nods.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.  
"I’m just blowing through."  
"You’re only ever blowing through, Toby, what are you doing here?"  
"Andi and I, I think it’s better that we’re not in the same state."  
Surprisingly, she was lost for words.  
He picked up the saltshaker. "We just watched Family Ties reruns. We never, there was always something. And I really hate Alex P. Keaton."

 

The eggs settled heavily in her stomach, and she wanted to reach out and pinch him as they walked to the car. She thought, he came here, to me.

She almost turned to say, "rest with me, a while", or something less like a country and western song, when he turned to her and said, "I’m just going to make a phone call."

She watched him at the phone booth; thought how he had sat on steps waiting, so often, for her. How he had held her wrist, tracing lines, following blood.

She walked to him. "Give me a cigarette," she said, because it was hot and she was bored, because he was wearing his fucking suit in the middle of the desert.

He cradled the phone against his shoulder and she stepped close to him, closer than she should. Or, rather, closer than she had before. He murmured into the phone, he held her gaze. There were fingertips on chest as she reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette packet.

She watched him pat his pockets down for a lighter. The phone was on his shoulder and he murmured nonsense, "yes, yes, of course". She crossed her arms, her ankles too. When he finally flicked the lighter, when she leant in to catch the flame, she thought, if this were a movie, I'd reach across and hang his phone up.

And then he dropped his gaze and said, "no, Andi, it's just, uh, it's just CJ."

She felt like a fool. She felt like throwing up.

It was hot. She walked to sit on the car trunk. She blew smoke in straight lines.

*

Toby never stayed long in L.A. and she tells people she never knew why.

This time, it's his coast. Washington is colder than she likes, but it turns out they can do it, can be in the same city for longer than a breath. For longer than it takes to buy another bottle of whiskey.

Turns out that as long as they don't speak about the eighteen months they didn’t speak, or the fact that Toby hates L.A., almost three years in office pass. And, suddenly, they're watching grand jury hearings on televisions like they're play-offs. Suddenly she hates being photographed, suddenly it happens every day.

One day she tells him to shove it up his ass, one day she disagrees with him in the oval office because he's talking about mad cow disease when what he really means is Qumar. She's aware that this is what they do to each other, that this is what they've always done.

She's aware that he never stayed in LA for long. Sometimes she thinks that it was because there was no other way to stop.

She throws open her office door after the briefing; he's two steps behind her. She doesn't look up, "Danny says a Press Secretary is photographed, easily, a hundred times a day. You know what? I really hate being photographed. There are all of these smiling photos of me, and," she's piling papers aimlessly, and realises it. She stares at him. "I'm an excellent liar, it's my job. But you stand up there with your hands over your fucking heart like you, you, forgive me? Like you grant me absolution? Fuck you."

He shuts her office door and says, with his back to her, "We have to work out a, a way to do this. We have to work out a way to do this better than we are now."  
"Did you ask Nancy to speak to me?"  
"Yes."  
"Why?"  
"CJ-"  
"-why? You treat me like I'm a child, Toby. I know what my job is, I stood up there, I made jokes. 'Paint and add new carpet', I said. What we're doing is wrong. And if you tell me again it's not, then for the second time in my life I'll tell you you're either a liar or a fool. And I don't care which it is, Toby."  
"CJ? Did it, uh, happen to you?"  
She stops, then, "excuse me?"  
He coughs, leans in; she recognises his sympathy posture and she's disgusted. He says, "are you upset because, uh, is this personal?"

She wants to laugh. She thinks, fuck you.

She says, "what you must think of me."  
"I just-"  
"-as if that's the only reason I would be upset? Just how stupid do you think I am?"  
"Stop it, you know that's not what this is."

 

She wants to say, I know the name of every government in Africa and I still have no idea what this is.

Instead: "you're right, we can't have these conversations here."

He doesn't say a word, leaves her office, door clicking shut behind him. She wants to throw things after him, wants to kick her desk, wants to drown her goldfish except, can goldfish drown?

She watches the fish circle the bowl, once, twice. She sighs and opens her door.

"Carol, can goldfish drown?" Carol looks like she was just contemplating ducking behind a desk.  
"Sure, they drown in the air. When they're out of water."  
She breathes in, and out. She's good at this bit. "Well that doesn't seem right."  
"Something about gills."  
"Something about gills?"  
"You've gotta see Leo."  
"Something about gills? Seriously?"  
"You want me to find out about the fish, CJ?"  
She looks at the papers Carol has thrust into her hands. "Nah. No."

She closes her eyes for a second, for less than a second, and then walks through the bullpen. She hates photos of herself because some days she can't even tell if it's real.

*

He has this two-pronged attack of thoughtlessness and apologies.

"Tell me how to fix this," he says, days later.

He's been sitting in her office for hours, talking about sports. Sam is buzzing around too, pissed about this photographer's book. She looks at both of them and thinks, I have to get a lock for my door.

Sam leaves, and Toby says, watching the door shut, "tell me how to fix this?"  
She wants to say, "it's late", she wants to say, "not at work". Then she realises it's always late and, well, they're always at work.

He's silent, he's staring at her. It reminds her of the time she drove him to hospital, his hand bandaged with her new Banana Republic shirt. She had driven quickly, listing all the outfits the shirt complimented, now ruined.

She breathes in like her lungs are new, like they stretch forever inside her. She says, carefully, "I think our friendship makes you unprofessional. I think you use it as a license to get angry with me when you can't yell at anyone else. I think you think that we'll always be okay."  
He's silent, still, and she continues, not angrily, "'did it happen to you?' The only thing that happens is this, again and again."

"We never talked about the India-Pakistan thing," he says.  
"Toby, seriously, Toby, you don't want me to list every thing this is about."

"You're not that person to me," he says finally. "And I'm sorry if you think you are."  
"I'm the one you're not careful with. It's occasionally flattering, that you think that much of me, but..."

She turns away. She thinks of the first time she saw him brush his teeth, faucet running the whole time. She resisted the urge to lean across and turn it off. She thought, at the time, oh, we are from different worlds.

"I won't be the person you're not careful with," she says again.  
"You're not. CJ, you're the one I’ve, I've been half in love with half my life."

They sit in silence.

She wants to say, you weren't born in the desert, to you L.A. was all taking Fountain not Sunset. She wants to say, you weren't born in this desert, Toby, you never knew what it was like to watch water.

*

He has this two-pronged attack of thoughtlessness and apologies.

He is sitting on her steps. He has this way of loitering on her property, so it's of absolutely no surprise to find him sitting there, only hours after their conversation in her office.

"Scat!" she says when she sees him. "Scat!" she says, in the tone she normally reserves for neighbourhood cats and drunken Josh.

He tilts his head, slightly, and then shifts over, leaving room for her on her own steps.

She says, "I'm not sitting next to you. Strange things happen when we sit on steps. It's like some sort of nexus of the universe. An, an evil nexus of the universe."  
"That doesn't sound healthy."

She sits down. "It's not."

"I think the deal is, once you can't count on fingers anymore, you stop counting."  
"Toby?"  
"You said that we've known each other for, that you didn't have enough fingers to count how long we've known each other for."  
"And you said, 'you could use your toes, CJ.'"  
He laughs. "Yeah."  
"Which, let me tell you, was exactly not the right answer. I was having a, a magnificent moment of nostalgia. You were talking about toes."  
"Well, I've never been a, uh, sentimental person."  
"Yeah. Well, we both know that's not true."

They watch traffic, a little.

He speaks slowly. "I stopped counting. I mean, it’s never mattered to me."  
"I should have walked away," she mutters, "I saw you sitting on my steps, I should have walked away. I should have walked to Baltimore."  
"Baltimore?"  
"Toby."

There's this proximity they have, that she's always known they've had. And there were these long absences in years gone, these long absences filled with missed phone calls and unwritten letters. They're sitting on the steps of her building and it feels no different from her being LA and him being in New York.

Their shoulders are touching.

"There's this church in Portugal. In Nazare, the old city. It's tiny, it's five inches of church on a cliff. Andi and I went there once. It's called the Hermitage of Memory. I mean, that's the translation."  
"I never knew you went to Portugal."  
"It was, uh, when Andi and I were trying."

There's something that turns her stomach to hear that he thought of her then. Something that makes her feel a little less stupid. Something that makes her feel like the stupidest woman in the world.

"I wanted to forget you. I was standing there with Andi. I didn't want to be thinking of you when I was standing there with Andi."  
"Toby, you don't have to-".  
He interrupts, hand over her hand, stinging like fingers on light bulbs, like acid on skin. "There are days when I want to go there with you. Because there's this place, and maybe it's just the translation, but there's this building of memory. And if I go there with anyone, I want it to be, uh," he falters then, and she knows exactly why.

"With someone you've been half in love with for most of your life?"  
"More than half, sometimes."  
She stares at him. "Sometimes."

His hand is on the back of her neck.  
"Oh," she sighs, because she wants to say 'get away from me', because she's leaning into his hand.

"What are you, uh, what do you think?" he asks.  
"That sometimes I wish I'd never met you."

He laughs. She doesn't.

"Let's go inside," she says.

She thinks, this is where it started. She thinks, here we are again.


End file.
